The Four Best Finds In Occupy Wall Street’s Music Library

October 10, 2011

Over the weekend SOTC pal Ann Powers wondered about what the music of Occupy Wall Street might be, and she discussed the drop-ins by the likes of Jeff Mangum and Talib Kweli as well as the music emanating from the park’s current residents; she also mused on the “human microphone,” the means by which sound is amplified in Zuccotti Park because the organizers don’t have permits to run microphones. (It’s a very incredible thing to watch, as you get to witness a crowd digest speeches that it’s hearing line by line; there’s more on it from Carl Wilson here.)

But there’s another side to OWS’s music too, although it’s a small one. The ever-growing lending library—the leave-a-book-take-a-book shelf shown above; its catalog is online here—yesterday had a small clutch of records available for people, presumably those with battery-powered turntables at the ready, to listen to. The records weren’t exactly political, but they were pretty solid. (The library’s accepting donations via mail, for those of you who want to donate.) Four selections (which I think means about half the music offerings) below.

Debbie Gibson, “Only In My Dreams” maxisingle

Debbie Gibson, “Only In My Dreams (Dreamix)”

A maxisingle from Long Island’s most undersung singer-songwriter? Yes please.

I picked up this record by this Puerto Rican singer because of the font—which looked like it was crafted from bent plumbing pipes—and a guy with a camera around his neck who’d been watching me flip through the musical offerings said to me, “Oh, yeah, this is great, she sings really nice but then there’s crazy funk backing her.” He then took the record for his own personal use. Kind of annoying because there isn’t a lot of English-language information on this singer online—one of the most nefarious troubles with the digital age, of course, being its giant, yawning memory hole.